National’s Housing spokesperson Judith Collins has accused the Minister, Phil Twyford, of "playing fast and loose" with taxpayers' money by underwriting millions of dollars worth of KiwiBuild houses based on little more than casual chats with developers.
Ms Collins says it was revealed last month that Mr Twyford agreed to underwrite KiwiBuild houses with developer Mike Greer Homes, despite many of these already being built before KiwBuild got involved.
In Parliament today, the Minister admitted he was surprised to learn, after questions from the National Party, that the test his officials used to determine whether the underwrite would apply was done verbally with the builder.
"Mr Twyford’s underwrites guarantee a minimum price for KiwiBuild homes that don’t sell, shifting the risk from the developer to the taxpayer. He was very fast and loose with taxpayers’ money last year, signing off $660 million worth of underwrites," Ms Collins said in a statement after she questioned the Minister during Parliament's Question Time.
"Conversations are hardly a robust assessment of whether these homes will present a risk to the taxpayer, which is a real possibility given the shambles KiwiBuild has been to date," she said.
Ms Collins said only a third of the KiwiBuild houses have sold and the Government has already had to buy unsold houses and is now stuck with them.
She said the Minister has missed building targets and announced a recalibration in January that he said would take a few weeks, but still hasn’t been announced.
"Not only does this show how on-the-fly KiwiBuild has become. The lack of a paper trail for these Government underwrites flies in the face of promises to be open and transparent," Ms Collins said.
In Parliament Ms Collins asked Mr Twyford is it acceptable for the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development "to be playing so fast and loose with their response as to how these sign-offs for $700 million worth of homes have been assessed?"
Mr Twyford replied that is a matter for the Ministry.
"But I understand while there is no specific single assessment document, as requested by the National Party Research Unit, there are other documents and communications that set out the negotiations and record the Ministry's work in this area," he added.
"The point is in the case of for example the Mike Greer deal - 104 affordable homes brought to the market more cheaply and more quickly for the benefit of first home buyers."
Asked by Ms Collins is the quality of the response from his Ministry dependent on who's asking the question, Mr Twyford said: "No, not at all."
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